Gadgets and Gizmos
Rise and (Gradually) Shine
Most alarm clock beeps are the sonic equivalent of buckets of ice water thrown on your naked body as you cringe in the corner of a prison bathroom. The Philips Wake-up Light Alarm let’s you wake up in the warm embrace of the rising sun, and you can choose when the sun rises. Half an hour before you’re due to get up the device lights up at a very low level. Over the next 30 minutes, the energy saving lamp’s light intensifies, reaching one of four maximum settings (up to 300 lux). You can then have an aural alarm start too but instead of beeps you can choose from birds, chimes, bells or hand drums, or, if you’re not a hippy, you can set the alarm to your favourite radio station, undoubtedly the dulcet sounds of My Love Radio.
Price: RMB 1,285. Web: www.consumer.philips.com
Mixed Emotions
Sometimes the best gifts don’t cost a thing. Or, if they do, the monetary costs are negligible relative to the thought and feeling you put into them. Mix tapes are about the first thing you think of when you think of ‘thoughtful’ gifts, only giving an actual mix tape would be kind of inconsiderate since most people don’t have cassette players anymore. This cunning little package gives off the flirtatious glances of a mix tape with the pheromonal functionality of a USB playlist, and without so much as a whiff of the sad, doomed, desperation that came with mix CDs. The stick is good for 128MB, or about 120 minutes of music.
Price: RMB 135. Web: www.suck.uk.com
Sound Construction
A perennial problem for travellers is working out how they can crank that vacation-defining soundtrack when they go on the road. RCA cables let you play your MP3 player through hotel televisions, but a pair of self-powered, collapsible origami speakers is much more versatile. The OrigAudio speakers are an elegant product with a woefully clumsy name. They come in cube and wedge shapes, with a variety of design motifs.
Price: RMB 110. Web: www.origaudio.com
New-fangled Fan
Hey, fan boy. Got an overzealous building manager who keeps your apartment sweltering hot? Me neither. But I hear that it happens, and the perfect solution is this revolutionary new fan, if you can call something a fan when it doesn’t have blades. Dyson’s device sucks air up into its ring through a 1.3mm slit at 55mph. The airfoil shape of the ring pushes the air forward sucking the surrounding air with it, multiplying the breeze by 15 times. It's not as dirty as it sounds. The wind speeds are adjustable, and the fan direction oscillates through 90 degrees.
Price: RMB 2,280. Web: www.dyson.co.uk
This is the Droid You’re Looking For
Motorola’s Droid is the hottest new phone running, you guessed it, Google’s Android 2.0 platform. Its gold and black styling makes it look something like a Rihanna hairdo or a cellphone super villains could get down with. The Droid has a 3.7 inch touchscreen with a slide-out physical keyboard underneath; all housed in a body only 1.4mm thicker than the iPhone 3GS. There’s a 5MP camera with LED flash, but its autofocus is slow and unreliable. (This is probably a software issue and could be fixed with a live update.) The 720 x 480 video is great, though, and the sound quality is tops. The Android apps store is filling up, but it’s still not a patch on Apple’s. Then again, unlike China’s iPhone, the Droid at least has WiFi. (NB: The Droid is a US release. If you’d rather buy something designed for the local market than an import, Motorola’s MT710 is said to be China’s version of the Droid.)
Price: RMB 4,450 at www.taobao.com. Web: www.motorola.com
Stick it
Another great travel item, and perfect stocking stuffer, is Ecosol’s USB Powerstick. Plug it into your laptop or any desktop computer you can sneak access to and the Powerstick will leech off up to 750mAh in 90 minutes. You can then use whichever of the nine adapters you might need – all the major brands are covered – to power up your phone or MP3 player. There aren’t many legal purchases more worthwhile that weigh just 35 grams.
Price: RMB 340. Web: www.powerstick.com
Musical Cheers
Nothing says ‘happy birthday Jesus’ like a musical cake tray. Then again, nothing says ‘hey, Moses, you’re all right with me’ like a lazy Susan spinning 12 inch pizza tray. It sounds too twee to be true, but this thing really does want you to have happy holidays whatever your beliefs. As well as playing ‘Happy Birthday to You’, the device is equipped with LED lights that help you divide round foods into between two and 12 equal-sized slices so everyone, regardless of colour or creed, gets a fair share.
Price: RMB 410. Web: www.deni.com
The Yike Bike
The yike bike is an electric “mini farthing”. It’s a cool new mode of urban transport that probably smokes cigarettes behind the rec centre at lunch time and makes jokes about the Segue. The carbon composite Yike weighs just 10kg and comes with anti-skid, energy regenerating brakes and built-in indicators and lights. The 1.2kW motor charges in 30 minutes and offers a smallish range of nine to 10km. For safety’s sake, the bike’s speed is limited to 20km/h, even downhill. That’s probably for the best as the makers say “it is likely that you will jump off the front of a YikeBike in an emergency braking situation.” Yikes. The super expensive Yike bike isn’t available until 2010, but you can reserve one now for a deposit of EUR 100. Just don’t start using their marketing slogans – “I yike freedom,” etc. I yike them yike I yike mouth ulcers.
Web: www.yikebike.com. Price: RMB 35,000-40,000
